[CluelessBuilds] Fragile Investment - Glas, Chrome and only the thiccest Rads

[TECHNO-BUNKER]

On 6/14/2019 at 4:41 PM, cluelessgenius said:

alright so since this is finally actually happening i thought i might as well start a topic on it.

 

im planning this thing for literally years now and lets say plans have changed somewhat so now im back to the "basics" - but still fancy as fuck

 

so heres the juice:

 

i7 7700k

1080 Ti 

16 GB G.skill RGB Ram

Asus z270i mitx 

then some ssds and hdds and a corsair sf600 left over from the old planned build (tecnically i wouldnt need sfx anymore but meh .. does the job)

Lian Li PC o11 dynamic (with a couple of mods)

 

ek supremecy evo full nickel (x99 block converted to 115x)

ek gpu block

ek xres 100 combo paired with an aqua computer d5 pump

360 x 80mm tick alphacool monsta in the bottom

360 x 60mm tick alphacool ut60 in the top

360 x 45mm tick alphacool xt45 in the back

all noctua ippc nf12

all alphacool fittings since they are the only once that fit because.....

borosilicatglas tubing in the front and soft in the back

 

i have almost all the parts now and theres only time and work left to do.

expect i thought since its gonna be impossible to access later i might as well populate all the m.2 slots now and get another ssd for the back of the board 

and ohh of course eks cryofuel ill order with that ...and a filler bottle

 

heres some rough renders of the layout

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as you can see ill box off the top and bottom rad with holes for fans and fittings of course

then the back also gets an aluminium cover plate to make it a bit shinier

the pump goes in the back

and on top ill cut out a bit to fit my 5 1/4" drive cage

also quick disconnects out back (looped back around for now) for possible future external cooling (i know its redicoulus but i might try for passive while idle at some point)

 

heres some hastely taken pics i had lying around. now that i have a topic ill get you better ones as i go along

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so i hope you like it. i am grateful for feedback and thoughts. and also lets give this bitch a name ...

bro that is gonna look sexayyyyyyyy

[Tristerin]

If still allowing for a naming suggestion:

 

Transparent Priorities

[cluelessgenius]

9 hours ago, d4yh said:

bro that is gonna look sexayyyyyyyy

well i sure hope so honestly i am still excited about it but i dont hink im gonna do somehting of this magnatude again unless its all sponsored or something. this fat bitch took a lot more of my money than initially entisapated nd while im fine with that now...im kinda getting tired of there being just one more thing i need to buy for it  

9 hours ago, Tristerin said:

If still allowing for a naming suggestion:

 

Transparent Priorities

sure suggestions are welcome but transparent priorities ? meh...that just doesnt roll off the tung quite right

[cluelessgenius]

so i got the mounting plate for the cpu block shortened on the side a little yesterday and it now clears the ram perfectly.

also i repainted the ram heatsink halfs.

and my cpu is now officially in the mail to get delid.

also i figured out how im gonna do the cables probably.

 

for the gpu cables im gonna push the bottom rad back a little even though the orinial screw in position wont be used but its at the bottom anyway so 2 screw should be enough. an that gets me a bit of apce in front of the rad under the shroud where i can feed the cables through like this

 

fo the cpu 8 pin i sadly cant go straight up. its just too tight o a bend. so im gonna have to go a little bit off to the side towards the back of the case and behind the top rad

 

and then for the 24 pin i couldnt find an optimal solution so im sticking with going straight around and through the wall

but im gonna try to feed it through the wall in blocks of 2x3 since theres a led on the board exactly every 3 cables.

attempting to basically make a gap where the led can shine through

 

 

oh and also those fucking expensive silverstone sata cables are barely long enough to reach the drive cage. which is good so theyre not adding to the cable bulk im sure im gonna end up with anyway. but the way the ports are on the board isnt ideal for these cables so there is a bit of tension on them but im sure theyll be fine.

[cluelessgenius]

anyone any ideas on what i should do about lighting. i really didnt want to go with rgb fans since i love noctua so much but i mus admit i do love the way they look in this case like in this picture for example

 

 

anyway im not going rgb fans but i do want some sort of lighting so as a very basic setup i thought about hiding digital rgb strips behind the 2 accessable pillars like so

 

 

but i am thinking about how i could maybe put lights on the other side of the rads and somehow shine through. not sure though.

 

 

i saw phanteks make these types of fan attachments that add rgb lighting to your fans but i do not have the clearence for them and also all those cables and needed controllers take up too much space and add too much cost. its just not worth it to me. 

 

 

i thought more like making one long apa102 strip and controlling them with one pi zero.

 

let me know if you have any ideas about how to effectily light this bitch up

[cluelessgenius]

so i started sleeving cables yesterday for the first time ever...

jesus christ what a shit show.

so i have a 24 pin extension thats unsleeved but fully assembled so while trying to figure out how to depin it i ripped one of the cables out of the the metall head whatever that thing is called. great. i guess i could fix it but luckily i have asecond one of those extensions lying around just because they were sold as a pair

then i ordered some 6+2 pin extensions and sadly those were already sleeved black but they were still the cheapest ones i could find so im now ripping the old sleeving off and re sleeving them. which so far works great. is just really tedious.

and then for the 8 pin cpu cable i have an extension lying around somewhere as well.

also the de pinning toolkit i got is shit. i just use some tweezers now and that works way better.

[cluelessgenius]

so i fixed the one pin that came loose from its crimp or whatever you call it. and have now all the cables sleeved. well not completly. i got the old sleeving off where needed and the sleeving on all of them but i do still need to "shrinkless" them you now fix them in place with heat. easier than i thought once i fiured it out. so those are ready now. ill feed them through speratly and then put the connector on when it everything else is done. also i didnt do the full cable lengths since they wont be seen anyway. i only sleeved like half of the lengths of each extension. not that it would have been so much more expensive to do full length but why would i.

 

also my cpu is back from delidding and waiting in a box at the post office right now. gonna pick that up later. i havent seen results yet but they comfirmed a 19°C difference apparently. so im super stoked on that. and fast as hell too. i sent it this monday. it was there on wednesdays. and they got it done and shipped back on thursday. so i didnt even have to go a weekend without it. sad only that i have to put the stock cooler back on fr now since im not ready yet to assemble the watercooling.

 

also it was 37°C yesterday and 31°C at midnight which i cant remember seeing in germany ever. during the day sure but not throughout the night. needless to say i sleeped about 2 hours last night when my body finally gave up. and now i need to go to this business meeting this evening. that didnt sound right. its a football game sponsored by my company and they need us to be there and represent the company. so its probably semi-cold beers watching football but i feel like i want to fall into a coma right now. preferably in an air conditioned room.

 

anyway tommorrow is saturday so ill be at my parents again trying to figure out the top and bottom cover shrouds for the rads. those are almost the last things i need to do before i can start assembling i think.

 

off yeah and i resurfaced some 144 leds/m APA102 strips from my closetand writing the software for the controlling pi as we speak.

[cluelessgenius]

sooo.... again no visual progress i could show off yet. sorry but sometimes thinking stuff through takes time. and sometimes you have to go a step back to move on. so that being said im doing the top and bottom rad shrouds out of aluminium too now. 

mainly because plexi is a stupid material and a bitch to work with and ... i burned myself with the hot air gun (it maybe called something else in english idk). so now i got blisters on my finger and decided not to mess with bending plastic anymore. why the hell i wanted to use plexi in the first place idk.

 

and since they are now gonna be alu i might even leave them shiny.

also my cpu got back with a tested 19°C drop in temps. awesome. it ran one evening just idling and now it wont turn on anymore. not so awesome. really worried. i mean they should cover it if anything happened but just thinking about having that discussion makes me nervous. im gonna reseat it today and chek what i can but if i cant manage to get it working thats gonna be a whole thing again.

 

[cluelessgenius]

false alarm. somehow i must have not put the ram in right and it still started on saturday (weird).

anyway i had a closer look at the legend for the diagnostic leds and it was aparently ram related. so i reseated the ram again and now it runs perfectly. idle temps are at barely 40 on the crappy stock intel cooler and 27 ambient.

 

also with using aluminium (go i hate typing that) so with using alu now for the shroud thing are working out way better. i mean the cuts arent perfectly perfect but get that covered up somehow and i literally dont think i can do any better right now.

 

so up next ill cut the holes for the fans and fittings and then move on to the top. still need to figure out how to fix that in place up there effectivly but yeah..

ohh and i also cut the little piece to cover the back vents. theres gonna be lighting in there and i really dont liught bleeding out and throwing patterns on my walls. also i think i got cooling covered so i really dont need to rely on a couple slits in the back to do anything. ob viously the der8auer plaque isnt getting covered up. i slowly took it off and am gonna reapply iot when everything is done.

[cluelessgenius]

also heres a updated render

[cluelessgenius]

so the bottom shroud came out pretty well. top ones next. cable holes for last. nor sure how to them yet. i fear i cant make seperate holes for each individual cable. theyre just too close together for the alu to be stable between them. anyone any tips or knows of builds that have done this with the cables. i know ive seen it before but i dont know where. 

[cluelessgenius]

soo...what i didnt tell you is that i ruined my first try t this by mis measuring the holes.

and this the 2. try that i think came pretty well.

but now i have also ruined the first try of the top shroud because of the same stupid mistake god fucking damn it.

anyway im gonna try again tommorrow. luckily i got a bit of spare material.

[cluelessgenius]

alright so im finding it hard to assemble and post since most of the progress isnt the final look. heres the update. 

i messed up up the back panel trying to remove some glue from the protective film. gonna recut that real quick tommorrow using the old panel for marking it up. 

the zop and bottom panels are done though and im pretty happy with the results. 

space is in the case is a real bitch when assembling the loop. but i got most of the back half done/cut and fitted. so when the back panel goes back in i just need to hook it back up. 

ohh yeah and fitting the cables through the bottom shroud was moderately hard but turned out pretty great. but fir the top im just cutting a small rectangle in the back instead of individual holes. 

[cluelessgenius]

im sorry i leave you guys hanging this long im going through something right now. i might get a new job these days and thats all really taking my energy down.

 

the system is almost ready now. i have it all assembled. the loop in the back at least is also already put together and i got the hardware in and all. all together not perfect but the best i could do when it come to my craftmanship skills and im happy with how it turned out

 

only 2 things left to do now.

put led strips and a pi zero in.

and cut the glass tubing for the front .

 

then i can do 1 final assembly run and leak test the loop and call it done. that being said ill double check everything probably let the loop run for a weekend or so to really make sure theres no leaking because honestly the back part is pretty cluttered and seeing the pump right smack in middle of all the psu cables slightly unnervs me but at this point theres really not much i can do about that. but ill try cleaning it up as much as possible of course .

 

im at work right now. ill take pictures later

[cluelessgenius]

sorry again i just havent found the time yet.

 

but i did get some tinted mirror film for the glass panels. just wanted to try it out but i gotta say looked pretty awesome so now im doing that to the 2 panels. so when the lights on the inside are off itll look like a really reflective black monolith and then only when the lights are on youre gonna be able to see inside at all. and since the led strip im prepairing for this are 144 leds/m and very bright i think that should be anough lighting to still shine through nicely.

 

also scratched and snapped one of the glass tubes. well one straight piece that i ordered beforehand as just a sample. and i gotta say that worked pretty well. i might not cut them with diamond dremel disks after all and just scratch real good around the entire circumference and then snap and sand maybe even blow torch em later for the smoothest ends possible. anyway im using those 2 smaller tubes now to mock up my runs. ill put them in place and then tape em together real strong and then i can use them as a  template to hold against my pre-bent tubes and measure out where to cut those.

 

led sstrip wise i got the software actually ready and lying around from the pi that powers my desk leds but i did want to hook up the pi zero as a usb gadget and not use wifi like with the others but that whole setup is prooving harder than expected. for some reason its not getting recognized as a network interface right now but a simple com port. need to figure that out but then its just loading up my desk script and maybe a bit of modifying or fine tuning and soldering the right length cables to the strips. i decided to got with 3 strips 2 at behind the front pillar and 1 in the back. 

the space between bottom and top cover is roughly 21 cm, 144 strip means 1 led every 7mm roughly. so thats about 30 leds in height and times 3 means about 90 leds on that pi that plus the ram and mobo should be anough to get through the tinted film and make for a nice glow.

[cluelessgenius]

i know i know i always forget about the pictures when i work on it..i promise ill make some later.

 

so now im officially into the last stretch. the system is off the wall and on my kitchen counter.

the first glass tube is also in. although taht was a pain in the ass. i have spent no thought on the glass not having any give what so ever. i hoped the fittings would compensate for that but....well they dont. so i had to figure out in which order to to hook them up and ended up unscrewing a fitting then fixing it to the tube then fitting that into the other fitting and then re srewing that rotary fitting into the rad.

god i hope all the fittings hold their water. if literally anything but the front most fittings starts dripping i have no way of reaching it other than disassembling it all. that might break my spirit. but lets hope not.

 

also the cut and snap approach didnt work out to well. i alway ended up with uneven diagonal cuts which i then had to sand flush anyways so now im cutting with the dremel directly. works great but im getting dizzy even cutting one tube. im just not used to having breathing through a protective mask.

but the cuts are way better.

 

measuring wise im trying my best with marking up spare tubes and eye balling it and that works great so far. i mean theres alot of resanding and re trimming but better to leave to much and trim than to cut off too much and be fucked right?

 

led strip wise i finally managed to make my system recognize the pi zero as a its own network so now i can theoretically talk to it like i do with my other pi using the same script and ethernet protocols. also a 1ms ping was awesome to see. but i have rarely worked with a headless pi and am struggling a bit with getting my script to run on startup automatically. still a bit of research needed

 

oh yeah and the waterblcok is officially installed on the 1080 ti for the last time since when i took the old cooler off one of the thermal pads was so brittle and hardened i had to peal it off the card piece by piece.

 

gonna do the other rad tube next (so then the 2 top and bottom ones in the back will be done) and then move on to probably the gpu before cpu just working my way from the back  to front most tubes but depending on which way is easier i might switch who cares. then one last check at least on the fitting i can see and then a first wet test. probably with distilled water for a last flush and leak proof test before pouring in the EK stuff.

 

oh and as a side note i might have to ask a friend to help me carry it back to desk when im done since it weighs a metric butt ton already even without the water in there. 

[cluelessgenius]

 

so as you can see top and bottom tubes are in. gpu is up next

[cluelessgenius]

so the first gpu tube is in looks pretty good but the second one cracked when i was cutting it. like not the whole thing but lets say a finger tip long piece broke off and cutting the tube down to where it would be perfect again would make it to short to reach so i ordered 2 extra tubes in case i fuck up once more :D. gonna use one of the cpu tubes until new ones are here. 

 

so far i still have to say glass is easier to work with than i thought. sure you gotta cover eyes, nose and mouth while cutting. cause re trimming and cutting off half a cm will send "bigger" glass pieces flying towards you but even cutting more in the middle will produce a certain amount of glass dust that you dont want any chance of breathing in. thats why im doing it in the sink. i can keep a thin stream of water on it while cutting and rinse it out right after.

 

only think i regret using aluminium a little bit. i dont know what else wouldve been better but 

its not as shiny as lets say the nickel backplate on the gpu or the cpu block and it scratches quite easily - something have now just come to accept. it got a couple of places where i couldnt help but to scratch it a bit. but meh im not about to redo the whole thing. i guess itll just be another example of my general work motto - great idea, aweful execution.

i mean where do you think the idea for clueless genius came from? genius ideas, absolutly no clue how to do it properly and perfectly. if only i had that tony stark assembling machine. just make a 3d modell and then send it into "production" and let jarvis do his thing. man that movie made prototyping look easy

[cluelessgenius]

man am i glad i ordered 2 extra tubes. i snapped one yesterday. gpu is in and hooked up but i guess i must have had to much stress on the first cpu tube. all looked good until i tightened the fittings down then the long run broke right at the end.

so spend the next half hour finageling the snap part of the tube out of the fitting and rinsing that out. and now i acutally need the 2 tubes that are coming. 

luckily theyre already at the post office ready for me to pick them up after work. gotta say maybe its because they are also german but that shipping time is pretty damn good.

so hopefully installing tonight / tommorrow and then i can fill it up and let it test cycle over the weekend. fingers crossed

[For Science!]

10 minutes ago, cluelessgenius said:

-

make sure you double check your fitting's o-rings since broken glass can slice them up and cause leaks later.

[cluelessgenius]

1 minute ago, For Science! said:

make sure you double check your fitting's o-rings since broken glass can slice them up and cause leaks later.

thanks ill check again but spent a good amount of time cleaning it fr exactly that reason. i think its good. also those alphacool fitting have another oring in the screw down bit. i mean to say they are not just push-ins

and they way they tighten down i think its gonna be fine. what does slightly worry me is that they are so tight that i cant even fully screw them down. like really no way to screw them in to the end.

i think i just had the long tube a tiny bit too long and that was causing stress. looked good while loose but tightening the angled fiiting at the end make the bottom tube straighten out more i guess and that cause even more stress pushing the long run together and cause the collapse. ill cut the next one a tiny bit shorter and have an eye on it closely while tightening down.

[cluelessgenius]

so the loop is done

went to fill the res.... aaaand the pump /res kombo is leaking literally the one thing i havent tested with water before. gonna try and takr it out tommorrow and see what the problem is but anyway heres the loop. obviously no led lighting yet 

[cluelessgenius]

alright sooo i was just stupid for some reason. i took apart the pump / res kombo and there were no orings. dont know why but i found them, put them on and now its not leaking. so distilled water test coming up

[cluelessgenius]

soo my stupidity apperntly doesnt end. now the pump aint working. aqua computer d5 with usb - power on molex - no water movement. contacting them right now and might need a new one

[For Science!]

3 hours ago, cluelessgenius said:

soo my stupidity apperntly doesnt end. now the pump aint working. aqua computer d5 with usb - power on molex - no water movement. contacting them right now and might need a new one

uhhh, are you adding water to the reservoir in the back? you know, where the pump is? Pump only pushes water and is fed by gravity.